Horace (television play)

Horace is a 1972 television play written by Roy Minton and directed by Alan Clarke, first broadcast as part of a BBC1 new play series on 21 March 1972.

Plot
Diabetic Horace (Barry Jackson) is mentally impaired and works in a joke shop. He befriends loner schoolboy Gordon Blackett (Stephen Tantum), who retreats from his loveless home into an imaginary world.

Cast

 * Horace - Barry Jackson
 * Gordon - Stephen Tantum
 * Ivy - Christine Hargreaves
 * Dick - Talfryn Thomas
 * Mrs Radford - Hazel Coppen
 * Sidney - James Mellor
 * Miss Bowler - Patricia Lawrence
 * Mr Scrimshaw - Robert Hartley
 * Mr Frankel - Howard Goorney
 * Whitsun - Ken Parry
 * Brenda - Caleigh Simmons
 * Mrs Beal - Daphne Heard
 * Customer - Eric Francis
 * Waitress - Pamela Miles
 * Jeffries - Jeffrey Gardiner

Critical reception
The Daily Telegraph wrote, "Never sentimentalised... sympathetic, touching The piece worked marvellously well."

Television series
The play was later developed as a six-part half-hour series for Yorkshire Television.